Wowed by Wisconsin

Casey Garrow

07/29/2013

On his final college visit before announcing a top five and making a commit soon thereafter, Portland (OR) Central Catholic defensive end Connor Humphreys was impressed on his two-day visit to Wisconsin.

MADISON - Football practice starts next week for Portland (OR) Central Catholic Connor Humphreys but instead of enjoying his last dead week of the year, the 6-4, 265-pound defensive end is focusing on where he will play football next fall. Humphreys made his last unofficial visit of the summer with a two-day visit to Wisconsin.

"We drove around the Capital (Sunday) for the campus tour," Humphreys told Badger Nation. "Everywhere we went, it still seemed like we were on campus. It seems like Madison is all the University of Wisconsin, which is pretty cool to me."

Yesterday was all about exploring Madison, and Monday was all about Wisconsin football. Humphreys went to see the new facilities and met with head coach Gary Andersen. He also had lunch at the Memorial Union with defensive line coach Chad Kauha'aha'a and a few of the players, cheese curds included.

"I just liked meeting all the players," said Humphreys. "I feel like I fit the characteristics of all of them. I'm the same frame size, height and weight. I really feel like I fit that Wisconsin defensive lineman type.

"I also sat down with Coach Andersen. He talked about his three main beliefs. He tries to help the players succeed and he told me how he does that. It was good for me to understand where he's coming from as a coaching point. I think that's good for me to understand when making a decision."

In his opinion, Andersen and the rest of his staff pulled out all of the stops for the three-star Humphreys – ranked No. 48 defensive end in the country by Fox Sports Next.

"I've been to schools and they will show me all their Heisman trophies winners, but Wisconsin was the first school to hold out the Heisman trophy and say hold this," Humphreys laughed. "It was pretty cool. Then they pulled out all the bowl rings and the Big Ten championship rings and loaded up my hand with all of the rings. That was also pretty cool."

Humphreys was not the only one impressed with the coaches and players. Even his mother seemed to give Wisconsin the stamp of approval.

"My mom loves coach Chad," said Humphreys. "She thinks he is a great coach. She likes all the coaches and how they treat the players like their sons. Coach Andersen has a son that plays there and I met coach Chad's son. It seems like it's all one big family."

Badgers fans will have to wait until Humphreys gets back home to see if Andersen and the others coaches were able to convince the defensive player to put Wisconsin in his top five list.

"Once I get back to Oregon, I will talk it all over with my family and I will think of a top five," said Humphreys. "I'll probably be committing to one of those top five sometime in August."

"Arizona is opening a new facility so I got to see that," said Humphreys. "At Arizona State, I met the new defensive line coach Jackie Shipp. Both trips were pretty good overall. Since their so recent both Arizona and Arizona State are still pretty much equal, but time will tell if one stands out a little bit more.

"I didn't get to talk to Arizona State head coach Todd Graham because of the Pac-12 media day. I have skype meeting with him sometime this week. It will be good to finally get a chance to talk to him.

"Also, there were like 30-40 recruits at Arizona on Saturday so I didn't get to spend a lot of time with Arizona head coach Rich Rodriguez. I did get to talk to him for a little and it was fun time. Hopefully I will talk to him more before making a decision."

Although Rodriquez didn't get to speak much with Humphreys, one recent Arizona commit, Jordan Morgan, is taking it upon himself to convince Humphreys to play at Arizona.

"I talk to Morgan a lot, who is also from Oregon so we're pretty good friends," said Humphreys. "We talk a lot about Arizona football. Morgan goes to a different school in Oregon, but we're still friends. He has been trying to convince me to go to Arizona like him. I was sending him snap chats all night when I was visiting Arizona. He was getting pretty mad that he wasn't there with me."

Having experience as a nose tackle, defensive end, defensive tackle, center, guard and tackle, Humphreys is done with unofficial visits, but he may take a trip to see Oregon State practice with a teammate if they can find some free time. He wants to announce his decision by mid-August.